Students heading back to Boone County, Conner, Cooper, and Ryle high schools on August 19, can search a collection of their schools' yearbooks online for free.

The Boone County Public Library launched an enhanced digital archive on August 4, making nearly 20,000 historical items searchable at bcpl.org/history. The collection includes yearbooks from all four Boone County high schools, with the oldest dating to Burlington High School in 1916.

The archive is free.

It runs on Recollect, a platform built for cultural heritage organizations to preserve and share collections online. New search tools link records across people, places, and events. A search for "Florence," for instance, surfaces nearby communities, cemeteries, historic events, and related materials in a few clicks, the library said in a blog post Tuesday.

Beyond yearbooks, the archive holds the full run of the Boone County Recorder newspaper from 1875 to 1973 and a Family Files collection documenting genealogies and histories of local families.

Community contributions sought

BCPL is asking residents to contribute photographs of local people, places, or businesses, along with records from churches, schools, or organizations. The library specifically lists Boone County school yearbooks as accepted donations.

Contributions can be emailed to [email protected] or dropped off at the Archive and History Center inside the Main Library in Burlington. Desk hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. The direct phone line is 859-342-2665, ext. 8134.

The library did not specify how many yearbooks from each school are currently available or the year range for each collection. The archive is described as continuously expanding.

The first day of school for Boone County students is August 19. The searchable archive is live at archive.bcplhistory.org.